I think I know how to solve the problem except: I don't know where in the pom the specific version is referred to (I do not see it explicitly) and the solution I have seen is to add this dependency:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun</groupId>
<artifactId>tools</artifactId>
<version>1.6</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_29\lib\tools.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
But I would like to use com.oracle and the jdk directory on Windows is jdk1.8.
So is there a way to make the pom "want" the version of tools that I actually have on my machine?